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Interesting. I suppose that makes sense, in a way. Legolas Send a noteboard - 03/01/2011 07:51:41 PM
One of Mishima's pet obsessions was how much was lost/twisted in translation. He was incomfortable with the whole idea of translation he thought a betrayal, and greatly mistrusted translations from the Japanese he believed wasn't understood well enough by western translators, and as he couldn't judge himself of the results... English was the sole western language he could read more or less fluently, so eventually he announced these approved/revised English translations would be considered his original for westerners, and all further western translations had to be done from them.

It's unusual for an author to have the clout to make such decisions, though, isn't it? Tolkien exercized a similar amount of control over his translations, but I don't know of many other authors who do or did.
Some scholars don't agree with Mishima that the English translation are all that great and put his reading skills of English into question (some local specialist of Japanese litterature wrote an article on this years ago, pointing with examples how much he thought Mishima's prose had lost from the translation from English instead of a direct Japanese to French translation, especially now that there are really excellent French-Japanese translators), so I guess one day (once he gets into the public domain, probably) new translations from the original Japanese will surface, a bit like has happened with the new French translations of Dostoievsky (but not with results as "dramatic" as that - or as Kundera's early novels, I'd expect).

That'd be an interesting matter to look into... shame I don't speak Japanese.
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Yukio Mishima - Spring Snow - 01/01/2011 09:33:55 PM 8378 Views
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Re: Yukio Mishima - Spring Snow - 01/01/2011 10:32:44 PM 2148 Views
Re: Yukio Mishima - Spring Snow - 02/01/2011 11:52:30 PM 1935 Views
That really does sound interesting. *NM* - 02/01/2011 11:54:42 PM 924 Views
As is the case with many writer's and artists. . . - 03/01/2011 12:00:32 AM 1755 Views
Re: That really does sound interesting. - 03/01/2011 05:54:56 PM 1812 Views
Yeah, I didn't care for it much, but is interesting. *NM* - 04/01/2011 05:34:53 AM 892 Views
Re: Yukio Mishima - Spring Snow - 03/01/2011 06:46:59 PM 1937 Views
Nice clarification. - 04/01/2011 05:37:03 AM 1750 Views
I really liked this book and mentioned it some time ago. - 02/01/2011 11:30:14 PM 1974 Views
Re: Yukio Mishima - Spring Snow - 03/01/2011 07:29:06 PM 1911 Views
Interesting. I suppose that makes sense, in a way. - 03/01/2011 07:51:41 PM 1909 Views

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